


I'm a Fool to Want You

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [35]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Getting Together, Humor, Juno’s hot girl moment, Lounge Singer Juno Steel, Meet-Cute, Mild Angst, Other, Pre-Canon, Unresolved Sexual Tension, almost? it's while he's paying off his debt to vicky, in which nureyev accidentally falls head first into a rom com, nureyev poses as the president of venus and it Gets Worse, they both work for Vicky at the same time, with a massive grain of salt because this is thoroughly not E
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:28:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28562778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: Nureyev wasn’t going to complain about a debt that could be paid off with a single heist. Nureyev had owed a little too much to a few too many people throughout his life. If all went well, which he was hardly foolish enough to assume it would, he would finish the job and be able to wash his hands of the favor entirely.He doubted the heist could be that difficult. He already bore a great, albeit coincidental, resemblance to the president of Venus.Rec fill for lesbian4lochness !! ilysm thank you for this kickass prompt
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [35]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492
Comments: 70
Kudos: 123





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kopescetic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kopescetic/gifts).



> hey all!! just because this is rated M but doesnt really have that vibe start to finish, ill be doing content warnings a little more carefully than usual just to make sure nobody reads anything they didnt sign up for!! otherwise a pretty light fic its nice
> 
> Content warnings for alcohol, implied/referenced sexual content, smoking mention, some making out but nothing too serious

Valles Vicky wasn’t exactly the kind of person Nureyev wanted to be indebted to twice. He could appreciate a flashy crime, of course, and he would be a hypocrite to complain about her partiality towards them. However, for someone who had spent so much of his life haunting shadows and memories as if he had never existed at all, doing anything so blatantly was enough to make his stiff, almost nervous posture a little less feigned than usual.

However, he wasn’t going to complain about a debt that could be paid off with a single heist. Nureyev had owed a little too much to a few too many people throughout his life. If all went well, which he was hardly foolish enough to assume it would, he would finish the job and be able to wash his hands of the favor entirely.

He doubted the heist could be that difficult. He already bore a great, albeit coincidental, resemblance to the president of Venus.

If there was anything Peter Nureyev appreciated about Valles Vicky, he supposed it was her taste in favors. Far too many of his so-called friends in high places would treat a favor as an opportunity to have him do their dirty work miles below his pay grade. Vicky, on the other hand, had pushed open a gilded door to a gem encrusted room and instructed him to play politician at a gala until a certain statuette fell into his hands, at which point he was meant to pass it along to another of her employees.

The disguise hadn’t been difficult, requiring only a touch of makeup, some duct tape, a string of rope, and a minor kidnapping. The heist shouldn’t have been difficult either. He merely needed to stick his nose up, slip the statuette into his back pocket, and point a finger at the meanest looking security guard.

Everything leading up to the gala had gone to plan, and until a certain lady caught his eye with all the neon potency of blaster fire, it appeared things were going to continue as such.

Peter Nureyev had lost enough goons in his life to slip away from the security guards unnoticed. If he was going to keep his spine straight and his nose up at such a gala, he might as well partake in the festivities. He didn’t eat on the job and he didn’t particularly enjoy any of the songs being lulled out by the band, so he decided it would be best to pass the time with company. There were certainly no other reasons he slipped towards the edge of the dance floor, making a point of leaning against the wall as if posing for a painting, least of all that he found the lady looking bored over his drink to be the loveliest thing in a room crafted to be appealing.

“Looking for something?” The lady huffed after grimacing down another draw from his drink.

“Company, if you’ll have me,” Nureyev smiled.

“I’m working,” he all but growled.

“Security?” Nureyev continued lightly, finding that the smile flitting across his face was not ingenuine in the slightest. 

As much as he knew he should be concerned with the statuette, it wouldn’t be arriving for quite some time, and if he was being honest with himself, there was a certain passing amusement to be found in the lady’s misanthropy.

“Yeah, something like that,” he snorted, taking another drink from his glass. “Fine. I’ll bite. What’s a guy like you doing at a place like this?”

Nureyev raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t know me?”

The lady rolled his eyes.

“God, why do I even bother,” he huffed. “I’m not from Venus and I don’t keep a list of every rich asshole with a party invite tattooed on my forearm.”

“My apologies,” Nureyev returned. “I’m but a lawmaker, and I must say, it is a crime to make a lady as lovely as yourself upset. Now, so I might issue formal amends, what name should I make them out to?”

Peter Nureyev prided himself on being able to tell a lie as smooth as silk. Practiced promises could bloom from his mouth like smoke past the red-cushioned lips of a starlet and do so with all the deadly accuracy of a snake’s venom. However, he felt no need to draw on any of them when speaking with the lady.

Lovely did not begin to describe him. Where the resting expression of most of the diamond-encrusted guests was haughty, as if the rose gold mirrors were barely opulent enough to bear their reflections, his was a focused glare. He didn’t doubt most of the guests had all but emptied their wallets on bottled attractiveness, and yet, the lady had outdone them all with his look of righteous indignation.

His brow drew low across his face and his jaw went tight, as if every gemstone wrought into the wall was a personal insult. He seemed to have been drawn by a reverent hand, for such people as this could not merely be born. Every stroke of the paintbrush must have been purposeful and loving, and yet, he wore this artful benediction with hunched shoulders and a glare, as if he were hardly aware it was present at all.

“Juno,” he returned, as if conceding to lose an argument.

“Juno,” Nureyev repeated, for he could not think of a better name for the goddess among men.

“Yeah, and what do I call you?”

“President Laszlo,” Nureyev returned, well aware his teeth had bared into a smile and that Juno had to take another drink just to hide his shiver.

“President of what, the Jelly of the Month Club?” Juno snorted once the champagne dulled his nerves.

Nureyev laughed, though he made a point of letting it drip a little lower than usual, as sweet as a back alley kiss.

“Something like that,” he returned, chuckling again when Juno’s brow furrowed. “I’d tell you, of course, but it’s so very difficult to think about such bores as politics for long when you’re looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Juno all but demanded.

His voice was as lovely in a growl as it was when wearing the indignation that sat upon his face like a crown. As much as Nureyev wanted to file the matter away for future consideration, something warm had stirred in his chest and murmured heady, wine-sweet words into his ear about having time, and perhaps, making time for someone whose dark and clever eyes were raking up and down over him like he was a mystery whose answer sat somewhere between his lips and neck.

“Like I’m a mystery you’re trying to solve, my dear detective,” Nureyev joked.

Juno raised an eyebrow.

“And what makes you think I’m trying to do that?”

“Well,” Nureyev began, glad of years of practice of his composure for keeping his smile constant while Juno’s eyes trailed down his neck and past his collarbone like a lover’s finger before the kind of kiss that would leave him breathless for a week. “It’s just that your eyes like to linger, dear.”

Juno choked on his drink.

“Oh, my—are you alright?”

“Fine,” he wheezed. “Just thought you looked weirdly familiar.”

“Well, Juno, I’m afraid you’re not going to find the answer to your problem on my neck,” Nureyev smiled once more. He couldn’t tell if Juno was blushing, but the way his whiskey brown eyes went a little wider and his wine red lips fell ajar assured Nureyev that his words were sliding under his skin.

“I—” Juno swallowed. “Why are you spending so much time watching my eyes anyway? What is this, some kind of interrogation?”

“Is that what you call it when a man simply would like to get to know a handsome stranger a little better?” Nureyev smiled.

By his count, there were less than two feet between them. Every single inch seemed to ache.

“I’m leaving Venus tomorrow morning, so if I were you, I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Juno sighed, though Nureyev couldn’t manage to weaken his grin, for the sound had been as genuine as they came.

“Oh, Juno,” Nureyev smiled, letting his tongue run over the word. It was like red velvet, dark and sweet and suiting the lady even better than the graceful black of his evening gown and the mile high slit that just begged to be graffitied with ruby red lipstick stains. “That’s but a worry for tomorrow. There are hours until then, my dearest detective.”

Juno swallowed. Nureyev let his eyes linger on the bobbing of his throat and his thoughts linger on what such a motion would taste like beneath his lips. He wondered, vaguely, if Juno had managed to break his mental filing system.

“Shit,” Juno finally breathed with what was almost a laugh. Nureyev did his best to ignore the fond twinge in his chest at the sound. “I think my boss would be understanding if I left my post for a bit.”

“Long enough for a dance?”

“Nobody’s asked me yet,” Juno returned, though a smile had bloomed across his lips like rose petals.

“Well, let me be the first,” Nureyev chuckled, dipping his head in a slight bow and offering his arm. “Will you dance with me, Juno? I have time for a scandal tonight.”

“Scandal?” Juno snorted as he linked his elbow around Nureyev’s.

Nureyev merely smiled, letting the look linger for a moment too long to occupy Juno while he slipped the statuette into his back pocket, well covered by the tails of his coat. It had both the intended effect of distracting Juno with the extra benefit of making Juno’s lips fall apart so gracefully that Nureyev considered it a crime that he couldn’t kiss the starstruck look from his face right then and there.

“Juno,” Nureyev began as the band began to lilt out a gentle waltz he frankly couldn’t find it in him to hate. Perhaps he would have under some different circumstance, but Juno’s eyes were making a pilgrimage along his jaw, and pressed this close, he could almost feel Juno’s heart pounding against his own. “I know you’re not from around here, but did you, perhaps, do any quick research on Venus before arriving?”

“You can’t be that important,” Juno teased.

“You would be surprised,” Nureyev continued. “I wouldn’t make such a point of haunting a back corner of the dance floor if people wouldn’t care, Juno. If only I could show you off to the world, my dear. It’s seldom a man can be lucky enough to have a goddess on his arm.”

Nureyev supposed his instructions to blend in and look as if the entire room was below him had been even easier than he expected. He couldn’t find a single thing in the room to occupy him when this goddess among men was all but pressed against him, one warm, calloused hand gripping to the small of his back like a lifeline and the other pressed into Nureyev’s glove. 

“I don’t know how much I’d wanna be in the spotlight someplace like this,” Juno chuckled once the song began to wane and Nureyev led him back towards the edge of the room, ensuring the distance between them was never so cruel as to grow back to two feet again. Juno didn’t seem to object in the slightest. “It’s—y’know, stuffy and full of assholes.”

“I did think you looked rather lost,” Nureyev smiled. “Perhaps I could be of some assistance. I don’t know if I could exactly lead you home, but I might know a place where you might be able to let your hair down, take your shoes off, remove any other articles of clothing you see fit.”

They didn’t make it to Nureyev’s hotel room.

Apparently, Juno’s tongue was as sharp as his eyes, and both had the ability to make him firstly, hot under the collar and secondly, incredibly stupid, as they had coaxed him into a back alley for a private moment. Peter supposed his standards of work hadn’t been the first thing he had sacrificed for the lady, for he was sure he would wake to a haze of regrets the next morning.

For the time being, however, Nureyev’s teeth were worshipping a farewell letter into Juno’s neck while the lady gasped someone else’s name. That was enough to convince Nureyev to kiss it off of his lips once more until he too had to part for air, a luxury he would happily trade for Juno any day if the feeling of Juno’s hands creeping up underneath the tails of his coat wasn’t making it so difficult to breathe in the first place.

“You keep a lot in your pockets,” Juno snorted.

“I’m a busy man, Juno,” Nureyev chuckled, letting it flutter into Juno’s jaw once more. “And if I’m remembering correctly, I have something very important to do immediately that doesn’t require any conversation about my organizational skills.”

“Shut up,” Juno teased, though his heady grin, smeared in two-toned lipstick, faltered when his hand slipped into Nureyev’s pocket.

“Juno, dear?” Nureyev paused. “Do you need to take a break?”

Nureyev hadn’t realized what had happened until the statuette slipped out of his pocket altogether.

“You—” he sputtered, and Nureyev staggered backwards when he noticed there was no fondness in his tone. “You stole this! Goddammit, Vicky’s gonna kill me.”

“Vicky?” Nureyev coughed out the name. “Juno, you don’t mean—”

“Mister President!” A voice Nureyev recognized as a security guard’s called from the mouth of the alley.

“Juno—” Nureyev started, trying and failing to grab his wrist before he could stuff the statuette down the front of his dress and take off at a sprint.

Nureyev managed to feign a stagger in order to zip his pants by the time the guards stumbled to his side.

“Are you hurt, Mister President?”

Nureyev swallowed, then, thankful for the amount of spare items he kept in his pockets, produced a makeup wipe to do away with the love letter Juno had smeared into his mouth and down his throat.

“I was mugged,” he decided. “He didn’t take anything of value. I’d say you should leave well enough alone while I make a very important call.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOY this entire chapter is a thinly veiled who framed roger rabbit reference. unfortunately a piano does not get dropped on benten but juno does get to be pretty in this one
> 
> Content warnings for implied/referenced vixen valley-typical content, sexual tension

Vicky, somehow, had placed most of the blame for the Venusian fiasco on this elusive Juno Steel figure, who she referred to on a full-name basis that Nureyev could only assume was borne from her partiality towards the concept of ‘wringing his sorry neck.’ She had even forgiven Nureyev enough to let him slip into a bodyguard’s uniform and sink his hands into a few of the less generous pockets at the bar of the Vixen Valley so long as he gave her a cut. It wasn’t his proudest work, nor was it his best, but he wasn’t going to give up an opportunity to earn a little extra cash while his next job on Mars was still a week away.

Despite Vicky’s willingness to forgive him for his lapse in judgement during the former heist, Nureyev was adamant not to step on any toes while in her establishment. He tried his best to keep his nose clean and the inner pockets of his blazer full, for he had long since learned not to keep anything too important in the back. However, when a few minute’s break for a cup of water brought him near to a hissed comms call, he couldn’t help his footsteps from growing quiet and his ears from growing sharp.

“Rita, I don’t have time for this,” an almost familiar voice whispered from what Nureyev had to assume was a performer’s dressing room, largely emptied by the blaring music of the acrobatic show happening on the other side of the simple, black painted wall.

“But boss!”

“Shh, don’t ‘boss’ me here,” the performer huffed. “Rita, whatever it is, can’t it wait for actual work hours?”

“Your schedule says you are working,” the person on the other end, Rita, apparently, insisted.

“Whatever. I’ve got a show.”

“You also gotta hear me out on this,” Rita pressed. “I hacked into the cameras—”

“Rita,” the performer groaned.

“What? Sometimes a girl’s boss doesn’t comp her for her overtime quick enough and she doesn’t wanna pay for a show.”

“Look, I’m sorry about the overtime, it’ll be in by the end of the week—”

“Anyway,” Rita continued. Nureyev risked bringing the water to his lips once more, just to cover how fervently he glanced around for security cameras. To his luck, he found only one at the mouth of the hallway that led back to the floor of the Vixen Valley, as the other led to the main stage. “I saw something you might wanna hear about.”

“Rita, this had better be important,” he huffed. “I don’t wanna think about you seeing me in this.”

“I’ve seen you in less, boss,” Rita continued.

“That’s why you knock on the goddamned shower—”

“Oh, no, I always close my eyes first just in case, I was talking about that one time at the pool,” Rita cut him off quickly. “Like I was saying though, I’ve hacked into the Vixen Valley security cams a million times and I saw this one guard and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before—“

“You hack into the security cameras to look at the guards?”

Rita sighed.

“Well yeah, sometimes I think about my mom on accident and get real guilty so I have to look away for a second.”

The performer didn’t reply, merely letting out an exasperated groan.

“What I was saying about the guards though was that there was this one new one who I ain’t ever seen before, and I looked at him and I said to myself, he’s real handsome, but more in a way that my boss would like than me, so I thought I’d call you about him, but then I realized that I knew he was the kinda guy you’d like because he looked almost just like—”

“Shit,” the performer cut her off. “I’m on in five. There’s about to be a herd of scantily clad jackasses coming through here, so I think I gotta go.”

“But boss—”

“I’ll call you again after the show,” the performer cut her off and hung up.

Nureyev wasn’t exactly happy with the prospect of being seen on any security feed, let alone one that could be hacked into. Vicky had assured him that the feed would be conveniently lost within forty eight hours of his time on the floor, and for all he cared, those forty eight hours couldn’t come soon enough. However, between the knowledge of the acrobatics show coming to an end and the prickling memory of the security camera by the door, it seemed that his only route was into the backstage area to wait until his path was a little clearer.

Some sensation that was half recklessness and half curiosity tugged at his sleeve after the herd that the performer predicted exited the stage. As much as he knew he should head back to the floor as soon as possible, something in his chest itched to know why the performer sounded so familiar. 

However, the last time he let his guard down to make an excuse for someone, he nearly derailed an entire heist, so once a blur of red sequins jogged past him and Nureyev knew for certain he couldn’t make out any of the performer in the dark, he slunk back into the hallway from whence he came.

However, that didn’t mean he had to avoid the stage altogether. Most of the people who weren’t tipping anybody spent most of their time sitting at one of those round tables with just enough seats for a guest and a Vixen and a perfect view of the stage.

Perhaps he might haunt the audience, letting wide eyes and slack jaws cover for him while his hands danced in and out of pockets with all the careful art of the Vixens themselves. Perhaps he might celebrate what earnings he had already made and find a seat to enjoy the show. He had yet to make up his mind when a spotlight fell upon the closed curtains and the decision was made for him by somebody who hissed that he should sit down and quit blocking the view.

He wasn’t exactly sure what view was coming, but the curtains nearly trembled with the anticipation of it all. They were a plush red velvet adorned with a gold rope, and between the single circular spotlight and the opulence of the stage, Nureyev couldn’t help but think of the slips in which certain performers began their shows. They were pieces of fabric intended to be showy while they lasted, but ultimately, meant to be pulled away so the audience could feast their eyes on what lay underneath.

“And now,” a voice came over the speakers with all the vintage gusto of an announcer from an era long passed. “Presenting Dahlia Rose.”

When the curtains did pull away, Nureyev felt a breath leave with them.

He knew not to expect the most energetic performance, for most of the audience left after the final acrobatics show, but the sight upon the stage might as well have been an explosion. It would make sense, for the figure at the epicenter of it all was a bombshell.

Red gloves snaked their way up to his elbows, while a sequined gown the color of a fresh love bite clung to his chest and hips and thighs with reverent devotion. The skirt flared down towards the bottom, and thanks to a mile high slit that drew the eye more than any other detail of a costume meant to grab attention, Nureyev had a passing moment to let his gaze join in worship of a well-muscled and well-scarred leg that was striding closer and closer as the band at the back of the stage began to strike up a tune and the performer walked up to the vintage microphone at the end of the stage.

It took all of two bars of music for Nureyev to recognize exactly where he had known the performer. Those soft, reverent lips were familiar not because he had seen this particular Vixen elsewhere, but because they had breathed soft gasps into his own in an alleyway on Venus. The curve of a sweetheart neckline across his breast was the same as the black evening gown that had clung to him like a desperate lover almost a year ago. The voice that began to croon a smoke-sweet melody into the microphone was not just the voice from the comms call, but the voice that had moaned someone else’s name until it drove a knife into Nureyev’s chest and he had to kiss it off of his lips to ensure the sound did not kill him.

Nureyev knew the microphone was a prop. That didn’t stop a jolt of something hot and out of place during a heist from blooming in his gut when Juno left the microphone stand with only his lingering grip around the pole as a love letter in farewell. Peter couldn’t help but let his own fingers laze over the memory of how those same hands had felt slipping lower and lower down his back as Juno eyed his neck like he was counting heartbeats to see just how much he could undo Nureyev without taking his clothes off.

Nureyev knew, logically that there was a set of stairs curving their way down from the catwalk jutting out from the stage. However, the concept of them hadn’t ever left him breathless before, as if the sight of them underfoot of a goddess had recontextualized the image into one of religious rapture.

He didn’t realize his hands had come to grip the edge of the tablecloth in a vice until what had seemed like miles between them had shortened to feet. The pianist’s fingers curved and arched and stretched through a solo that seemed to fill the room with a heady, perfumed smoke that only made it more and more difficult to breathe as those soft, wanting eyes saw fit to meet Nureyev’s from the foot of the stairs.

“Enjoying the show?” Juno chuckled, pausing to wink at another patron at a nearby table.

When he strode closer, Nureyev was sure the dome upon Mars must have lifted, for there couldn’t have been any air in the room.

“He’s gonna solo for a little while, so I’d say we’ve got a minute,” Juno purred once more as he strode around the back of Nureyev’s chair, hips moving just more than usual and his strong, thick fingers coming to rest atop Peter’s shoulders. They slid lower and lower until one finger flicked teasingly at his security badge, the shock of it making an embarrassing chuckle fall from Nureyev’s lips.

“Oh, Juno,” he heard himself breathe, trying his best to turn it into a laugh to save his dignity. However, if his dignity was the price he had to pay for Juno Steel, he would gladly pay it time and time again.

Juno tutted disapprovingly, sitting upon one of his thighs like a throne and crossing one knee over the other. For the feeling that jolted through Nureyev, he might as well have set him on fire.

“That’s Dahlia Rose to you, handsome,” he smiled. “Maybe I’ll let you call me the other one some other time.”

“Perhaps I’ll give you some other name as well,” Nureyev chuckled. “President Laszlo doesn’t suit me.”

For the first time all evening, Juno’s face fell out of that lazy, sultry look it had worn so easily.

“You’re—”

“Solo’s almost over, love,” Nureyev returned a little breathlessly, sweeping the gloved hand that had come to rest upon his shoulder into his own so he could kiss Juno’s knuckles farewell.

Juno took the last few bars to internalize exactly where he knew this supposed handsome stranger from, but by the time he trailed away from Nureyev’s lap, leaving him with his heart pounding somewhere within the hot and tangled mass of emotions that had sunk past his chest and into his gut, he had fixed his face once more.

He didn’t tarry for long, however, for in his last moment before the mic came on once more, he let one cherry red gloved finger sit at the base of Nureyev’s neck and trail down his sternum like a pleasantly earned bead of sweat, only stopping once the first button of his half-open shirt got in the way. He made a disapproving noise and flicked the spot, and just to make sure the words landed hot and sweet against Nureyev’s ear, tugged him up by the collar with a strength Nureyev should have known to expect from the artful lines of his biceps, but gasped at nonetheless.

“Don’t forget to breathe, honey,” he chuckled, the words whispered away into the last strains of song as he dropped Nureyev back into the chair to recover as he ascended the stairs once more.

Nureyev wasn’t sure how well he could keep that promise. All he could do was try his best to sit up a little straighter and pick his jaw up off the floor and watch as the bottom of Juno’s skirt worshipped at his heels. Peter couldn’t blame them. He couldn’t think of a person in their right mind who wouldn’t gladly worship on hand and knee for such a goddess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yOU KNOW WHAT. YOU KNOW WHAT. ive seen SO MUCH of nureyev being mysterious and seductive and all that and that's wonderful and all but LET JUNO HAVE HIS HOT GIRL MOMENT COME ON
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill be hot in your general direction
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey all!! have a soft chapter we deserve a soft chapter 
> 
> Content warnings for mentioned sexual tension 
> 
> Everybody make sure to take care of yourselves. i love you all. drink some water <3

“Rita,” Juno hissed into his comms the moment he caught his breath from the jog offstage. “Rita, you’ll never believe who I saw in the audience.”

“Was it the guy I was telling you about?” Rita returned flatly. “Nice show by the way, I really liked the bit where you got kissy with that guy in the audience instead of spreading it out.”

“Rita,” Juno groaned, head falling back before dropping down into his still gloved hands. “This is so weird.”

“I’m just saying boss, if you’re gonna tell me how to do my job all day, I might as well tell you how to do yours,” Rita snorted.

Juno’s eye roll was enough to knock his head out of his hands, freeing them to chuck away his gloves and heels into the haphazardly organized costume bin that currently bore the sweater and trench coat he hadn’t changed out of since wearing them to a open-and-shut murder scene that morning.

“This isn’t my job,” he huffed. “It’s a favor. If Vicky can’t use me for the higher risk stuff, she might as well use me to fill a gap in the programming until they can get that other show set up. I’m just a substitute, and I’m not even getting paid for it. It just goes on my tab.”

“But who was the person you saw?”

“Right—remember President Laszlo?”

“That’s the guy I was telling you about, Mistah Steel!” Rita huffed. “I was gonna say that I saw a new security guard who I thought looked like your type but then I realized I knew he looked like your type because he was your type because he was the guy pretending to be President Laszlo—“

“Wait, wait, back up,” Juno cut her off. “How did you know he was pretending to be President Laszlo?”

“Well that’s what Miss Vicky said when she was yelling at you, wasn’t it?”

Juno huffed.

“Look, let’s just say I tried to forget about that,” he continued. “Well, I think he might be ending his shift about when I am, so I think I’m gonna try to grab a word with him.”

“Mistah Steel, you make a sound like a retching dog every time I bring that job up. Are you sure you’re gonna be okay to talk to this guy face to face?”

Juno rolled his eyes, setting the comms down on a nearby table so he could wrestle himself into his sweater and coat. Even if he had the luck of getting to wear more than most performers because of a few too many dress rehearsals where he got tangled in a labyrinth of straps, that didn’t mean that just having his shoulders bared to the world didn’t make him feel practically naked. He didn’t doubt someone could psychoanalyze the hell out of why he felt exposed with anything less than two layers, but he didn’t particularly care as he rolled up the dress and traded it for a coat that nearly felt like coming home.

“Whatever,” he huffed as he pulled the last sleeve on. “I’m just saying that I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna be able to call. He seemed pretty hopeful about getting to see me later, and I dunno if that was just the show.”

“Mistah Steel!” Rita cried, and Juno couldn’t help a hint of a smile when he heard her clap. “I mean, it coulda just been the show because I always watch your shows just to see if I could give you any pointers or anything because just ‘cause you ain’t my boss when you’re at your second job don’t mean you’re not still my best friend and a girl can’t let her best friend go around looking stupid just because he ain’t never been a lounge singer before, but anyway I mean that Mistah Laszlo or Not-Mistah Laszlo guy or whatever looked like he was really enjoying it and he kept tripping on people after that so I think you mighta done something to his brain—Mistah Steel, tell me you didn’t use little mind control music robots like in that one movie The Great Muppet Gatsby 68—”

“They made a 68th one?”

“It came out two years ago, Mistah Steel, you gotta keep up,” Rita returned, voice disapproving. “And anyway, I’m trying to tell you that I’ve been watching him on the cams this whole time—not even ‘cause I thought about my mom and felt guilty this time, I just wanted to keep an eye on him and see what he was doing hanging around a place like this—and okay, okay, okay, I dunno how much time I’ve got to tell you this but—”

Rita’s voice cut off the second Juno jumped, for a pair of rapid, even knocks had rung out from the door.

“He’s coming to see you, Mistah Steel!” Rita hissed.

“Oh,” Juno swallowed. “One minute! I’ll call you back when I can.”

“Go get your man, boss,” Rita snorted.

“Ugh, don’t say it like that,” Juno huffed, though he couldn’t help the slight smile on his voice as he pocketed his comms and strode towards the door.

“Is it a bad time? I can come back later, if that would better suit you,” Laszlo, or, Juno supposed, Not-Laszlo, called from the door. “I’m willing to wait however long you need, Dahlia. Or, if you would rather not have my company at all, I’ll part from you forever without complaint.”

“No need for the theatrics yet,” Juno snorted, pushing the door open halfway, as if the general mess of the dressing room might be covered up entirely by doing so. “I’m done with shows for the night. You can call me Juno.”

“Lovely,” he smiled in return, though this one was a little less sharp and taunting. It was strange, in a way, to see someone who had seemed to be a fantasy brought to life acting normally. “As much as I adore the name Dahlia Rose, not every name can be as lovely as Juno.”

For a man who had watched Juno with parted lips and dark, hungry eyes, he looked almost strange with his breathless grin replaced with an earnest, friendly one. The fox’s teeth that had tugged at his lower lip seemed almost duller now, and though he was no less attractive than under the hazy lights before the stage, a certain quality to the white bulbs from the changing room had laid him bare. Juno had to admit, he liked what they revealed.

“Sure,” Juno snorted, taking a step out of the room and nodding towards the backstage area. “I know a place where we can get some peace and quiet while they herd all the last patrons out.”

“Lead the way,” he returned with a nod of his head.

Juno half expected him to offer an arm the same way he had on the dance floor almost a year before, but he merely kept his hands in the pockets of his uniform in a comfortable way, though Juno suspected he had learned to grow protective of his pockets over time. His mouth twitched with a grimace at the thought, but if Laszlo, as it was easiest to think of him, didn’t show any signs of embarrassment at their reunion, he supposed he might as well make an effort of quieting his own.

“It’s back this way,” Juno nodded by the time they reached the stage door.

The city night greeted him like an old friend, which was to say it spat on him almost immediately.

He swore as a cold, heavy drop of rain slithered down the back of his turtleneck, making him jump and hang onto the railing by the concrete stairs for dear life. Nearby, he heard Laszlo chuckle, and though the sound was just as dark and sweet as ever, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the genuine humor in it. He didn’t particularly strike Juno as the kind of man who would enjoy slapstick comedy, or, for that matter, any comedy at all.

The laugh was a sweet sound. It almost made up for getting nearly drenched in cold rain from the dome above.

“Don’t you worry, Juno, I’ve got just the thing,” he assured him, stepping outside with an umbrella and raising it over the both of them.

“A little more resourceful than I’d expect a politician to be,” Juno snorted.

“You and I are both well aware that President Laszlo is a very different person than I,” he smiled.

Juno wasn’t sure if it was the umbrella or the cold or some other thing he didn’t want to think about, but they were standing close. While their closeness had been a matter of electricity in the ballroom, he couldn’t help but find a comfort in it here. His companion was warm and his smile was sweet and whatever hazy promises they had made to one another while playing characters, be they the president of Venus or Dahlia Rose, seemed to fade. All that was left was the person who sat behind Laszlo’s mask, wearing a closed-lip smile and something soft in his bright, gentle eyes.

Juno had spent an embarrassing amount of time wanting nothing more than to get as much physical contact with the gentleman as possible. He supposed his objective hadn’t changed, though the image in his head looked a lot more like an arm around his shoulder than those clever lips on his own. 

“Yeah, well is there something else I can call you, Mister President?”

“Peter Ransom, I was hoping,” he returned.

“Peter Ransom,” Juno tried. “Well, Peter Ransom, what brings you here?”

“Well, when I was busy getting mugged,” Ransom chuckled fondly. “I owed Vicky a favor. As for now, I’m in town, bored, and thought I might offer my services for the evening. Favors from Vicky pay well, you know, even if they don’t pay off for quite some time.”

Ransom’s voice was as nice in casual conversation as it was when whispering flirtations and praises alike into Juno’s ear in a back alley on a planet a million miles away. Juno had to say, he almost liked it better now. It was low and pleasant and gentle and lilting, and despite his better instincts, he knew a stupid part of him would believe almost anything that bloomed past those lips.

He knew better than to trust Ransom. He had the smile of a conman and the clever hands of a pickpocket, not to mention that anyone who dealt in favors with Valles Vicky was usually the kind of person who dealt in stolen goods as well. 

However, Ransom was also sweet and polite and the owner of the most talented set of lips Juno had ever had the pleasure of getting to know for himself. Maybe it was stupid, but he had to admit he enjoyed leaning against the back railing of the stairs, pressing himself into Ransom’s side, and pretending all of it was just for warmth.

“What about you, Juno?” Ransom continued, snapping Juno from his thoughts. “If you went from abetting Vicky’s crimes to singing in a lounge, I have to suppose you have quite the debt to pay off. Are there any particularly heinous crimes in your past I need to worry about before I get too comfortable under this umbrella?”

Juno snorted.

“Nothing interesting. I shoplifted a couple times as a teenager, but you never heard that from me,” he joked. “I just racked up a hell of a tab a couple years ago and I’m paying it off with a night job.”

“And what kind of dayjob occupies you?”

“I’m not supposed to tell that kind of thing to clients,” he replied, though not without a smile that Ransom returned, just as bright and sweet as the hazy neon lights from the street reflected off the rain-shined roads.

“Oh, Juno,” Ransom chuckled. “I’m not just a client, am I?”

“I dunno, I don’t usually sit on just anybody’s lap,” Juno snorted, though his smile flickered when Ransom shivered, then went to great trouble to pretend it was from the cold.

“Dear, from just moments talking to you, something tells me you’re not quite—“ Ransom pauses to clear his throat. “Like that with all clients.”

“How do you know I’m not a hell of an actor?” Juno shrugged, though his teasing expression made an appearance once more as he leaned up to rest his head on Ransom’s shoulder. “You’re not the first guy who’s showed up to my act wearing his heart between his legs.”

“I beg your pardon,” Ransom huffed, though it was clearly joking. “After seeing you as Venus—“

Juno raised an eyebrow.

“As?”

“Of course,” Ransom chuckled. “Juno isn’t the only goddess blessed enough to bear a resemblance to you. I just thought we might have some greater connection.”

Juno rolled his eyes.

“Fine, fine, I’ll answer your goddamn question. I can make an excuse for a substitute bodyguard,” Juno snorted.

Ransom sniffed, his smile morphing into a soured expression that only made Juno laugh.

“Well, it sounds quite terrible when you say it like that.”

“I’m a private eye.”

Ransom raised an eyebrow.

“You must be joking,” he chuckled. “Is that why you were so defensive when I called you detective, detective? I have been wondering about that.”

“I wasn’t being defensive,” Juno grumbled, defensively. 

“It’s not merely that,” Ransom continued, a lofty, neon-lit smile crossing his face as he mused on. Something twinged in Juno’s chest, and he was struck by the strange sensation that he could stare at the blue-tinged face of Peter Ransom for the rest of his life if he had to. “Your sharp eyes, your wit, the trenchcoat, the endearing misanthropy—”

“Hey—”

“It was a compliment, my dear detective,” Ransom chuckled.

“Whatever.”

“Your clever tongue,” Ransom added with a look that told Juno that he knew exactly what those words were doing to him when paired with that fox’s smile.

“And what about you?” Juno blurted out before he could embarrass himself. “You got a dayjob?”

“Yes,” Ransom beamed, fully aware of how infuriating he was being.

Despite it, Juno couldn’t stay mad for long. There was something about the cold that brought people together, forcing them to hold a little too tight to one another. There was something about rain that did the same thing. It wasn’t raining particularly hard, so the drops on Ransom’s umbrella merely pattered like a dozen different heartbeats from above while the nearby streets hissed and the city lights glowed in their vaporwave mirrors.

The rain and the light and the gentle, closeness-borne smile all looked nicer on Peter Ransom’s face than he wanted to admit.

His sharp jaw and long nose bore the glow like a light cast upon a subject in an ancient painting, anointed in sodium orange and blue instead of holy oil. Ransom’s smile, on the other hand, glowed twice as bright. Juno had seen enough salesmen to know when somebody’s grin was trying to sell him something. Ransom’s hung in the air free and unbothered. It seemed as gentle and genuine as the hand that had come to pull Juno into his side when he noticed he was shivering. Despite the cold, the touch alone had struck a light in him.

“So what, professional president impersonator, birthday clown, give me something to work with here,” Juno snorted.

Ransom tilted his head in thought, mouth ajar and brows knit in a lovely, half-humored expression that Juno could have stared at for the rest of his life. Even if his teeth poked past his lips in thought, they seemed softer somehow, more like the fangs of a friendly house cat trying to look scary than the throat-tearing predator who had bruised a love letter into his neck the year before.

However, Ransom never got the chance to answer before a voice from the mouth of an alley, as voices from the mouths of alleys so often did, interrupted them.

“Hey, you! Get your goddamn hands off my employee,” Vicky called from the street, marching down the concrete path and preparing a hand on the holster of her blaster.

“Oh, dear—”

“Vicky, he’s with me!” Juno shouted back.

Vicky stopped in her tracks and groaned.

“Juno Steel, you’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing,” she grimaced, hand still on the blaster. “I ain’t gotta be half as nice to you as I am, you know. I already have a hell of a time convincing people this is a straight and narrow family business, and if you go and ruin that by making me get a goddamn noise complaint—”

“No noise complaint, I assure you,” Ransom smiled, raising the umbrella as both a gesture of greeting and a reveal of his face.

“Not you again,” Vicky sighed. “So I see you two have kissed and made up?”

“Not kissed,” Juno choked.

“Not yet, but if I’m lucky—” Ransom chuckled in the same moment.

“Whatever. Just make it home safe or whatever, alright?” Vicky huffed, then turned on her heel.

By the time the alley was empty once again, Juno could only attempt to repress his disappointment that some layer of magic in the glow of the lights and the rain and Peter Ransom’s genuine smile had faded. He was just a private eye overworking himself to get rid of a debt, and Peter Ransom was just another criminal trying to schmooze him out of a pair of handcuffs.

Ransom seemed to sense this as well, for he tossed the umbrella over his shoulder and prepared to take a step forward. However, before Juno could give up hope on a farewell any less awkward than their last, Ransom offered his arm.

“Might I walk you to your car, Juno?” 

Juno had ignored his fair share of red flags in relationships before. He supposed obviously being a criminal wasn’t the worst of them. As an employee in a front for the sale of stolen goods, not to mention stealing a few of those goods himself, the part of his head wired by the HCPD academy got quieter and quieter every day. He supposed that was why he took Peter Ransom by the arm and smiled back, and perhaps, why he felt hardly any guilt at all in doing so.

“I don’t think that would be terrible,” Juno shrugged as Ransom led him down the stairs.

“You know, I know a coffee place up the road,” Ransom started. “Perhaps, if you have time, we ought to meet one another there.”

“Yeah,” Juno felt himself smiling despite himself. “I think that sounds nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man :,)
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill eat your shorts
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man oh man oh man time for nureyev to be a smitten disaster on main again whats new
> 
> Content warnings for food/drink

Peter Nureyev didn’t do dates. He didn’t do coffee. He didn’t even do dinner, unless he had an angle to pursue. He was a master thief, for heaven’s sake, not a red-faced teenager with a crush and not enough money to take their partner to the movies.

And yet, here he was, in his fourth attempted outfit, trying to convince his head out of his hands so he wouldn’t smear the eyeliner he had already spent twenty minutes on.

Peter Nureyev, master thief, wanted revolutionary, interplanetary nuisance, did not go on dates. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve. He did not wear blouses on first dates with petulant detectives who were just about as likely to arrest him as kiss him, though mostly because he wasn’t sure if the blouse would be too much or too little for a coffee date of dubious formality.

He managed to pull his head out of his hands to look a world weary expression in the eye, then let out a sigh as if the weight of Mars was upon his shoulders. Mere days ago, he was all too happy to have been rendered an utter mess by Juno Steel. That hadn’t entirely changed, but the strange, warm sensation that wouldn’t get the hell out of his chest no matter how many times he tried to beat it off with the mental baseball bat of common sense had fermented in a way that had made it equally idiotic, but now, tragically, self aware.

Nureyev could only thank his lucky stars that he hadn’t done his hair yet, for he was sure his hands had spent more minutes knotted into the roots that morning than he had spent actually talking to the lady who had managed to single handedly decimate his pride.

When he looked up again, he stifled another sigh, struck by the realization of what an idiot he must have looked like in a mismatched skirt and button down, alternating between a parody of a man in crisis and meeting his expression in the mirror with a forlorn look. He tried, in vain desperation, to swallow down any kind of nerves or shame or excitement for the coffee date, but then his comms beeped, and his mental filing cabinet promptly broke.

“I’m looking forward to coffee today,” Juno’s message read.

Nureyev nearly winced at the flawless punctuation, but managed to talk himself down with reminders that during their conversation the night before, he had needed to walk Juno through a step by step process of how to send pictures through his comms. 

Peter inhaled. Peter exhaled. Peter considered that moving his thumbs to reply to said message should be, in fact, incredibly easy.

It was not easy.

Five minutes later, he managed a reply.

“And I as well,” it started. “If I might ask, what are you wearing?”

Juno’s response zinged across the screen before Nureyev could even set his comms down.

“I’m literally still in bed.”

“Get your rest, dear,” Nureyev started back, the soft, accidental smile crossing his face making one of the many knots in his chest begin to loosen. “Don’t let me keep you up.”

“You’re not up early agonizing over what color socks to wear, are you?”

Nureyev swallowed, glancing back towards the numerous pairs he had laid out, just in case he should decide against heels.

“Well, what color socks should I wear?” He returned.

“You could look nice in a potato sack, Ransom,” Juno shot back. “I’m gonna go back to bed. I’ve already got a sweater picked out.”

Nureyev nodded. He could match a sweater, he supposed, so long as it looked something like the one he had seen the other day. He couldn’t help but hope it did. 

As much as the article of clothing itself had looked nice, Nureyev couldn’t help but appreciate how comfortable Juno looked in it. Juno had appeared divine in the red gown the night before, not to mention that streak of velvet shadow at the gala, but in both settings, something a little out of place twinged in his jaw. When Juno emerged from the dressing room, he had left all his makeup save for the false eyelashes and a matte lipstick, which Nureyev had to assume were the least comfortable. 

Nureyev wasn’t the detective between them, but there was something utilitarian about Juno that he had a feeling he hadn’t truly seen in the flesh. He had thought Juno’s divinity to be grounded in his heady smile and the way those thick, strong thighs felt when perched across his lap like a throne. However, he suspected there was something holy to be found in the curve of his slouch or in the many scars he didn’t doubt makeup had hidden.

He tried to tell himself that Peter Nureyev was vain. Peter Nureyev was selfish. He didn’t waste his hours worshipping at the feet of someone else, for there were planets he had yet to see and jewels he had yet to wrap his hands around. However, that stubborn, warm feeling in his chest wanted nothing more than to contradict him. He attempted to shush it again, for believing that he cared only about his own self interest was safe and easy and so much simpler than letting his thoughts linger where usually, his hands and lips would.

The mind could not be so easily pried from someone as the body, unfortunately, and so, the holy ghost of Juno Steel continued to haunt him throughout the morning.

Nureyev shook his head. He kept the concept of sweaters in mind as he worked his way into a semi-formal blouse he hadn’t ever had the chance to christen and a pair of heels, just to be sure he would see Juno from his best angle.

Realistically, he knew it was cold, but it wouldn’t have been the first time he had suffered for the sake of an outfit. Besides, the warm, hideous thing in his chest seemed to take a certain pride in the matter, for he was not merely shivering because of his own mistake, but going an extra mile to impress someone else.

Nureyev reminded himself that he dressed for no one but himself, and that he had simply agonized in front of his hotel room mirror for an hour because he was at a mental block. His reminders were beginning to feel increasingly futile as he all but jogged into the coffee shop, telling himself it was because of the cold.

“Ransom!” Juno called from his seat, waving him down with a smile that made all the cold of the city streets dissipate in an instant, for the bud of warmth in his chest had bloomed like a summer rose, and even the baseball bat-wielding purveyor of common sense in his mind dropped its weapon in reverence of the goddess before him.

“Hello, Juno,” he greeted upon making his way over, categorizing every article of clothing and accessory the detective had donned before making the decision that he should not feel shame for his own outfit, which seemed to match well enough. He took another moment to thank his years of acting for covering the pounding in his chest when he took a seat across from Juno. “It’s been too long, my dear detective.”

“It’s been two days,” Juno snorted. “Missed me that much?”

“It might as well have been eons,” Nureyev returned with feigned drama as he swept one of Juno’s hands up into his own to kiss his knuckles.

He would have called the act worshipful if it hadn’t truly been selfish. As much as he thought of Juno like an exalted work of holy art, he knew well that the desire to fall to his knees and venerate the goddess drove the warm and heady devotion as much as anything else.

At the very least, it didn’t seem like Juno was complaining.

“Sap,” he snorted, though he did so with a grin.

“Whatever could I do to repay you, my dear detective?”

Juno rolled his eyes.

“Your company is payment enough for me,” he imitated back, letting out a single, unapologetically lovely burst of laughter when Nureyev feigned utter offense.

“And to think I was going to offer to buy you a drink,” Nureyev huffed. “Speaking of which, how do you take your coffee?”

“Black and strong enough to hurt me,” Juno returned flatly.

“Anything else?”

Juno sighed, looking away.

“With a stupid amount of sugar. Like, at least three packets.”

Nureyev smiled, and squeezed his hand before he stood once more.

“I’ll take care of it, dear,” he returned.

Nureyev’s hands were a little too busy rifling through his wallet and sorting through the handful of paper creds and cred trade in cards he had stolen while working the Vixen Valley’s floor to use his comms. Unfortunately, that left him with a somewhat long wait in line and only mindless tasks to occupy him, and before long, that warm sensation in his chest that had driven away his dignity by force returned, and it directed his thoughts back to Juno.

There was as much to exalt in Juno the goddess as there was in Juno the person. He didn’t conduct himself anything like his act at the Vixen Valley. Nureyev hadn’t expected him to, but there was a certain relief in it nonetheless. When he got bored, he played solitaire on his comms and drummed his fingers on the table. His eyes fluttered around the room and landed on the different chalkboard murals around the shop, lingering for long moments as his thoughts went meandering elsewhere.

He didn’t wear his trenchcoat like a robe, nor did he wear his thoughtful expression like a crown. He was lovely, of course, but not in any earth shattering or remarkable way. Juno was singularly human, and yet, that made the stubborn sensation in Nureyev’s chest all the harder to ignore.

Perhaps it was easier to worship a perceived goddess, rather than to come to terms with the fact that he wanted more than anything to lay the same exaltations upon another person.

He ordered their drinks. He paid. He returned to the table and pretended he didn’t go a little breathless at the sight of Juno’s appreciative smile.

“Thanks, Ransom,” he said, so simply that Nureyev nearly caved and let a correction of his own name slip past his lips on the spot.

“It’s nothing, my dear,” Nureyev returned as he took his seat once more.

They talked for some while, about somethings and nothings and everything in between. Nureyev wasn’t sure how his tongue continued working the entire time, nor how his words continued to come out so evenly, though he supposed years and years of using his acting on less embarrassing things had benefited him somehow.

After some time, Juno’s face fell, and Nureyev felt his heart sink with it.

“Ransom,” he began slowly, an eyebrow beginning to raise as Nureyev categorized every conversational mistake he had made over the course of the entire day.

“Yes?”

“Are you cold?”

Nureyev opened his mouth to reply, but paused himself, glancing down and starting when he realized he was all but shaking.

“It’s of no matter,” he returned quickly, feigning a casual laugh. “Air conditioning in some places can be so very brutal.”

“Do you want my coat?”

Nureyev knew he had already long since chosen his path, but the moment felt like a crossroads nonetheless. He supposed his ability to lie convincingly had extended to himself, for the patch of heady warmth in his chest he had been indulging all morning seemed to cross its arms, tap its foot, and glare at him as he thought over the decision.

Peter Nureyev didn’t go on dates. He didn’t get coffee with ladies who caught his eye. In fact, his eye didn’t get caught. He was selfish and single-minded and when people did things for him, it was because he had convinced them to do so for his own, strictly crime-related reasons. He didn’t go out of his way to pay for someone’s coffee or go back up into the line when it shortened to buy a pastry for the two of them to split. He was cold and calculated and deadly and friendless.

Perhaps he didn’t have to be.

Peter Nureyev squeezed his date’s hand across the table and nodded. Before he could get too lost in the moment, Juno ripped his hand away and shook it.

“Holy shit, your hands are cold,” he snorted, and before Nureyev knew it, he found himself laughing as Juno all but stormed over to stuff him into his coat. “Goddamn, Ransom, I think you might need this more than I do.”

“Not for long, detective,” he smiled, no longer trying to pretend that the warm fabric didn’t already feel like home. “I’d hate to steal something that looks so lovely on you.”

Maybe Peter Nureyev was less than half the things he pretended to be. Maybe he hardly knew what kind of person he was at all, for personality got in the way of his career. Maybe that was a worse thing than he realized.

He supposed he could think about it later. For the time being, he had a date to enjoy, and a warm, soft thing in his chest that he was gradually deciding not to hate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im. i wish i were on mobile i dont have the pleading eyes emoji but yeah
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill eat your shorts
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohOHOHOHOHOHO
> 
> Content warnings for food/drink mention, brief combat

“Rita, you’ll never believe it, he went on and on about feeling terrible for getting a pastry and said that we should split it or whatever, and then he got to the front counter and spat out the most complicated coffee order I’ve heard in my entire goddamn life,” Juno continued.

“Mhm.”

“And then I kept offering to pay for the pastry since he bought my coffee, but then he said he wouldn’t let me spend a dime on him if I was still in debt to Vicky, and I mean, if it were anybody else telling me that, I’d probably get mad at them, but for some reason, I just couldn’t do it, y’know?”

“Mhm.”

“And I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I had a damn good coffee date. How many years has it been since I’ve had a damn good coffee date?”

“Mhm.”

Juno’s brow furrowed at a clacking sound.

“Rita, are you knitting?”

“I’m ain’t doing nothing, Mistah Steel,” she shrugged.

“You don’t have to lie about knitting, Rita,” Juno snorted. “I’m not gonna judge you for doing something. Hell, if I had some other option than looking at a building and waiting for it to get robbed, I’d probably be doing that too.”

“It’s for your birthday, Mistah Steel, I ain’t telling you nothing!” Rita hissed, audibly whipping something away from the comms. “There’s a knitting curse or something too, so you gotta be careful.”

“Rita, I woke up in the middle of a nap and you were measuring my arm length. I don’t have to be a detective to know that wasn’t just for a case,” Juno teased.

“Yeah, well it ain’t polite to go shaking your birthday presents,” Rita huffed. “Go do your stakeout or whatever. I’m just trying to do something nice for you.”

“Rita, I am doing my stakeout,” Juno groaned. “And nothing is happening.”

“Have you checked to see if anybody tripped any security alarms in a while?”

Juno glanced down at the security comms he had been given and swore.

“Can I call you back some time?”

“Yeah, go get ‘em Mistah Steel, there’s a man on the second floor of the ancient Earth section, and he’s been real sneaky this whole time, but I don’t think he saw the sensor on the back of that weird looking necklace thingy he’s trying to steal, so I’d say to try and get ‘em on the way out of the exits on the other side of the building, ‘cause those are nearer,” Rita explained, her knitting needles still clacking. “I’ll tell you anything else I can about him, but I think he took most of the security cameras out, and he’s real good at hiding his face on the rest of these.”

“If you can tell me anything about him that might help, stay on the line,” Juno breathed as he slammed the car door behind him and took off at a sprint, cursing the collector for keeping so many knee-high hedge mazes in the gardens of a museum that might as well have been a monument to another wealthy asshole’s tax break. “What’s he doing now?”

“Is he picking his nose?”

“What?”

“Oh, no, nevermind he was fixing his mask and I just couldn’t see too well, false alarm,” Rita waved him off. “I think there might be some kinda tape over the camera or something. I can kinda see where he is, but I couldn’t tell you what he looks like if I wanted to.”

“Dammit,” Juno hissed. “How thick’s the tape?”

“How in the heck am I supposed to know?”

“I don’t know,” Juno groaned, a little higher than usual with the exertion of running. “Can you see lines? Anything that looks like layers.”

“Yeah, all over the place—oop!”

“Rita, is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I think there’s an alarm going off on the inside too, ‘cause Mistah Thief just tripped and it was kinda funny but it mostly looked like it hurt,” Rita snorted.

“Great,” Juno all but wheezed as the far door came into view. He leapt over one last hedge before coming to lean against a tree, trying to take all the time he could to catch his breath while the thief walked into his trap. “Where is he now?”

“Coming right your way, boss,” Rita returned. “Can you see him yet?”

“Don’t make me talk right now,” Juno panted.

“Alright, boss,” she shrugged. “Want me to talk about anything?”

“You keep knitting my sweater,” he replied with a breathless chuckle. “I’ll call you back.”

“Boss! I never said I was--”

The beep of the comms cut Rita off before she could finish her sentence. Juno winced. His finger, twitching with the effort of his sprint, had accidentally ended the call just a second or two too soon. Before he could have time to regret it, his comms rang again.

“Yeah?”

“I never said I was knitting you a sweater, and if I did, you never heard it from me,” Rita finished. “Bye, boss! Go catch your guy.”

“Rita, what—”

The comms beeped before he could finish his sentence. He couldn’t help a laugh.

Juno had done enough stakeouts to know the nighttime skyline of Hyperion City like the back of his hand, but he had to say, he needed to do a few more of them outside of his car, because he had come to miss the crisp city air, smelling like a million different cuisines and a nearby park. It was quiet for a city that always buzzed, and as he closed his eyes for a moment to inhale and exhale and let his pulse go down, he could almost bring himself to pause and appreciate it.

Before he could do much more than catch a breath or two, the sound of footsteps from the nearby staircase cut through the night like gunshots. He took that as his cue to rush to the side of the door, his own paces as quiet as he could manage after his run. Thankfully, it seemed his target was nearly as winded as he was. 

The thief had barely burst past the door before Juno could pull his blaster.

“Hands up,” he called. “You’re under arrest for breaking and entering and theft.”

The thief froze, but did not turn around.

“I’m gonna need to see your hands up, sir,” Juno added, a little more tense.

The thief merely panted, hands on his knees and head hung as he made an attempt to catch his breath. Juno knew something was wrong before the thief could even whip around, seizing Juno by the wrist and wrenching his arm so the blaster fire sank its teeth into the nearby tree, rather than the thief. Juno prepared his right hook until something else slashed through the air and he found a plasmacutter getting friendly with the skin on his neck.

The thief’s gaze was half as sharp as his knife, and even then, his obsidian glass eyes burned like blaster fire. Every line of his hand and jaw and carefully curated expression seemed woven into machine-like precision. Juno didn’t doubt that a single twitch from the man’s strong, tensed wrist could rend his throat in two. His face was even and steady and almost bored with the ease of the altercation, but worst of all, it was familiar.

Juno felt his jaw go slack at the sight of the man on the other end. The thief mirrored the expression, for his knife fell away, and he did nothing to stop it.

“Oh, Juno,” Peter Ransom breathed. “Did I hurt you, dear?”

Juno gave him enough of a shove to set them an extra foot apart. He didn’t have anything in particular to say, for he knew if he opened his mouth something a little too partial to the way Ransom said his name would come out. Instead, he just let himself back away, narrowed eyes locked on Ransom’s wide ones as he reached for his blaster once more.

Ransom flinched when his hand closed around the grip, only relaxing once Juno slid it back into its holster once more.

“Juno—I didn’t mean to be facetious or lead you on under false pretenses—” Ransom began to sputter, something Juno hadn’t thought him capable of doing before. However, his mouth was ajar and his hands were gesticulating frantically, as if he was calming a wounded animal instead of trying to soothe over a half lie that had turned around to bite him.

“So this is your dayjob?” Juno snorted mirthlessly.

“I was hoping you might get to know me as a person before worrying too much about my career,” Ransom admitted. “It’s foolish, I know. I enjoyed your company and I thought you enjoyed mine, so I hoped we might—”

“Look, Ransom, or whatever the hell your name really is—“

Ransom cut him off with a hand on his elbow. Juno jumped, and the hand fell away as if Ransom had been burned. However, once he could manage to convince himself Ransom wasn’t reaching over to stab him, he inhaled, then nodded, and Ransom’s hand fell back into place.

“Juno,” he began gently. “I have a number of things I wish to tell you. Arrest me if you must, but I promise you, I will not remain in any custody for long. If you want me out of handcuffs long enough to hear me out, I suppose I am going to need to make an excuse for you, Juno.”

Juno raised an eyebrow.

“An excuse for me? I’m the one aiding in a goddamned heist here, and you’re making an excuse for me?”

Ransom continued as if Juno hadn’t said anything at all.

“I’ve made more excuses for you than you could possibly know,” Ransom sighed.

“Seriously? I’m the one who isn’t a goddamn career criminal here,” Juno sputtered. “How the hell do I know you’re not just using me here?”

Ransom’s brow drew into a glare, all the reverent glow long since drained from his face. While his every word and smile and touch had been worshipful before, he seemed to be fighting back a clench in his jaw by force, fists balled and shoulders drawn high.

“Juno,” he began slowly with a shuddering breath that did nothing to calm whatever force had harshened even the soft curve of his cheek in the dark. “Do you think I would truly be idiotic enough to lay myself bare to just anybody?”

“I dunno, Ransom,” Juno returned. “Maybe people make mistakes. I know I sure as hell did.”

“Mistakes?” Ransom sputtered.

“Read the goddamn room,” Juno huffed. “You’re the guy I’m getting paid to arrest tonight. Hell, how am I supposed to know you weren’t just trying to schmooze me out of the handcuffs?”

“I jeopardized my freedom just by giving you the time of day, Juno,” Ransom shot back. “I was a fool for that alone, but that doesn’t make me an idiot. I’m not going to waltz right into the arms of a detective who sees me as some kind of mistake—”

Ransom spat out the word as if it had been a curse. Juno was almost certain he hadn’t meant for his voice to crack or for pain to tug at the corner of his mouth as he tried in earnest to keep his posture straight and his face composed.

“Hey,” he tried to protest.

“Am I a mistake to you Juno? Perhaps we haven’t spent the most time with one another, but I would’ve thought I meant something to you,” Ransom continued before Juno could edge in another word.

“Ransom,” Juno tried to butt in again. “Ransom, it’s not like that—”

“Then what, pray tell, is it like? Because you have done nothing to refute me, my dear detective.”

Juno opened his mouth to reply, but with the burning coals of Ransom’s eyes boring into him, he couldn’t find a single word to say.

“I thought not,” Ransom huffed. “I’m sorry, Juno, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to make one more excuse for you.”

“What?”

“I am not a man who agonizes over favors and their repayment, especially small ones,” Ransom continued. “Unfortunately for me, I seem to need to call in a favor at the moment. Unfortunately for you, it seems your debt is equal to what I need from you.”

“Debt?” Juno sputtered. “Like hell I’m gonna believe that.”

“I still have an intimate line with the Venusian government, Juno,” Ransom returned lightly. “You and I were quite the scandal. It would be a shame if the true name of the lady who mugged the president were to be revealed.”

“You lousy—”

“I don’t want to call in that particular favor, Juno,” Ransom cut him off. “But if it’s what I must do to get an even word with you, it is what I must do. I went to certain pains to keep the secret service off of you. Perhaps you could lose a single payout in exchange.”

Juno sighed. A part of him begged to shout in return, saying he knew a bluff when he saw one and pushing Ransom until he got absolute proof about this so-called line to the Venusian government. However, the part of him that had long since learned to read people for cues, whether they be for lies or tells or subtle emotion, kept the first part quiet. Ransom’s hands were off his plasmacutter.

His years in the HCPD told him to keep his eyes on Ransom’s hands. Even if they weren’t moving, Juno did as he had been told, partially because Ransom’s face was so much more difficult to look at.

Peter Ransom looked at Juno with a searching gaze, as if something apologetic or confessional might be found in the lines of his glare or the vein in his head. He seemed to have deflated without realizing it, his shoulders hunched instead of drawn high and his mouth slightly ajar with a thousand things he couldn’t find the words to say. Instead of the straight backed gentleman who had bowed and taken Juno by the arm upon their meeting, all he saw before him was someone rendered bare and utterly humiliated by that fact.

Juno didn’t know why he was still surprised every time Ransom showed some sign of humanity, but seeing something that might have been desperation flicker in his eye made Juno soften in a way he didn’t want to admit.

“Fine,” he huffed. “If a private word’s what you want, it’s what you’ll get.

“Good,” Ransom returned with a sigh, nodding back towards the parking lot. “I’m sure you wouldn’t trust me enough to drive me back to my hotel room—”

“Nope.”

“—So I thought I’d ask to intrude on your residence for a short while,” Ransom finished, starting to stride back towards the hedge maze.

“Do we need to worry about outside security cameras?”

“All accounted for,” Ransom returned.

Juno couldn’t help but notice that Ransom didn’t offer his arm as he walked. He knew it was a stupid thing to even consider after the way his clipped responses had brought such a clever tongue to barbs and sputtered offense. That didn’t keep it from stinging. The sensation eased over slightly when Ransom opened the car door for him before finding his own seat.

“Are you okay?” He heard himself pause to ask, trying to catch Ransom before he sat down.

The car door slammed shut in response and Juno sighed, taking his own seat.

“Ransom—” He started.

“Drive,” Ransom swallowed. “I think I’d like a moment to collect myself before that.”

Juno nodded.

“This is a hell of a favor I’m doing for you,” Juno huffed. Despite the achy bloom of guilt in his chest, he still gave Ransom an extra glance or two to ensure he hadn’t pulled his knife.

“I’m well aware,” Ransom returned, and for the first time, Juno saw something that might have been sickened nerves crossing his face.

“You’d better have a hell of a story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHOHOHOHOHO
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below for extra Cool Guy Points
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mooooom the girls are fighting
> 
> Content warning for food/drink mention

Ever since their eyes met across the ballroom, Nureyev had to admit he wanted to see the inside of Juno’s apartment. He hardly imagined the circumstances would be anything like these.

Nureyev had expected his hopes to be of a pleasant evening or invitation for a dinner date, if anything at all. However, all he could hope for now was that the gentle, meaningless conversation over their coffee date might not be their last happy, trusting moment with one another, and that, perhaps, he might be able to coax Juno into another one ever again.

He prayed he wouldn’t have to coax him into anything. In a perfect world, Juno Steel would fall into his arms willingly. Nureyev shook himself. In a perfect world, they wouldn’t have met, and he would have no qualms about justifying his career to a lady of the law while wanting so terribly to kiss him.

As much as the part of him that pretended his feelings for Juno Steel had been a temporary lapse in judgement wanted to believe that Juno would slam a casefile onto the table and begin an interrogation, he couldn’t find it within himself to let go of his idiotic affection for the lady.

Throughout the majority of the drive home, Juno had shot him brief, apologetic glances with wide, sweet eyes and parted lips that could never quite find the right words to say. Nureyev may have been a master actor, but he could not pretend the expression didn’t make his bitter suspicions soften.

Just because Juno looked like a kicked puppy didn’t mean Nureyev needed to forgive him, but it certainly made the prospect sound more tempting.

Juno offered him another one of those glances when they crossed the threshold of the apartment, though Nureyev kept his silence as Juno took his coat and mumbled something about making himself comfortable until Nureyev found himself perched on one end of a time-worn couch.

After what might have been an eon of hanging Nureyev’s jacket somewhere, Juno took a seat at the other end. The few feet between them might have been a mile.

“Look, Ransom,” Juno began slowly. “I’m sorry.”

Nureyev raised an eyebrow.

“Beg pardon?”

Juno swallowed, then took a breath to give himself a moment longer before replying.

“I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. Just because you’re a criminal or whatever. Hell, and I’m probably one too, if you look at all the shit I’ve done for Vicky. That doesn’t mean I get a pass to be a dick,” he sighed.

“Thank you,” Nureyev nodded.

Peter Nureyev didn’t let his voice go small when negotiating. He was a master thief who never felt something in his chest go weak when someone, especially someone on the other side of the law, offered a genuine apology. He was too dignified for such things as letting one, long-crumbling wall come down just because someone had met his eye with a soft look and open arms.

And yet, Peter Nureyev did not go on dates. He did not buy coffee or share pastries. He did not indulge the sweet spark in his chest. In the spirit of breaking his own rules, he heard his voice crack when he continued on.

“Juno,” he started again. “Am I a mistake?”

“Ransom—” Juno began, shattering the aching feet between them as he clambered close enough to lay a gentle hand on Nureyev’s wrist.

While Juno’s touch had always burned, this one felt more like a candle than a wildfire. In a way, he supposed the contact had been domesticated. Even if he nearly shuddered with the gravity of it all, it did not spark with desperation, but rather, stayed warm and consistent and gentle, as if brushing fingertips could heal over the entirety of their last conversation.

“Honey,” Juno started again, though he grimaced.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Juno made a noise.

“I just don’t like ‘honey’ coming from me,” he explained, an almost embarrassed laugh bubbling past his lips. “It’s Dahlia’s word, not mine.”

“I wouldn’t mind hearing it from either,” Nureyev nearly smiled.

“You’re not a mistake,” Juno sighed. “I really like having you around. It’s just—”

“That you don’t associate yourself with criminals,” Nureyev finished bitterly.

“Not really,” Juno corrected. “It’s just—the ones I’m usually around don’t do anything too illegal in front of me. I’ve got a little deniability there. And if I’m being honest, I know most of them better than I know you. Ransom, I’m not lying when I say I really want to trust you.”

“And I you, Juno,” he returned.

“But I think I’m gonna have to know a lot more about you to do that. I’m not one of those guys who likes to keep files or whatever, but I think I’ve got a right to know a couple things before I start feeling guilty about trying to arrest you,” Juno finished.

“Juno, don’t be ridiculous,” Nureyev smiled, a little faint and a little crooked and all too genuine for his liking. “We both know you already feel guilty.”

“Shut up. Whatever,” Juno snorted.

“You don’t need to convince me to talk, Juno,” Nureyev continued. “I want you to trust me.”

“Why?” Juno blurted out before he could stop himself. “I mean, you’ve got your job and I’ve got mine, and hell, I don’t even know if you’ve spent enough time with me to know if you actually like me or not.”

Nureyev tilted his head thoughtfully. He wasn’t sure if Juno had noticed that at some point, he had taken him by the hand. Peter squeezed back as he continued.

“I think the both of us are people with loose relationships with the law who are trying to generally do right in the world,” Nureyev considered. “And you’re wrong about that last point. I like you quite a bit.”

Juno raised an eyebrow.

“So you’re telling me this isn’t some kind of get out of jail free scheme?” Juno joked, though Nureyev had spent enough of his life reading people to know a defense mechanism when he saw one.

“Juno, I hardly expected to meet you. Vicky allowed me to pose as a bodyguard to pick pockets until the heist I came to Mars to commit,” Nureyev explained. “It was by luck alone that I came across you again, Juno.”

“I don’t believe in luck,” Juno snorted.

“What about fate? What about strange coincidences, those anomalies that can make two people who shouldn’t have ever met fall right into each other, and perhaps, grow closer?”

Juno rolled his eyes, the motion blurring together with his groan when Nureyev brought their interlocked fingers up to his lips for a kiss.

“Well, I won’t keep you waiting for me forever,” Nureyev continued, trying to drive the conversation, if just to pretend that he wasn’t losing control of the vehicle. “What is it that you’d like to know?”

“Why’d you steal the necklace?”

“Thank you for the softball, dear,” he chuckled, though the strange, new genuineness in his voice began to trail away. From the twitch at the corner of Juno’s mouth, he was fairly sure it hadn’t been unnoticed. “I was paid to. The brother of the gallery owner wanted to humiliate his twin over some petty argument or another. He said he didn’t care what I did with it so long as it disappeared. I think we both know a certain small business owner who would be all too happy to resell it for me to some corner of the Outer Rim where it won’t ever be traced back to Mars.”

Nureyev had expected disgust, perhaps, or maybe even a re-evaluation of certain opinions and morals. However, he hadn’t expected Juno’s jaw to drop entirely, his brow knitting and head shaking as if Nureyev had told him he had stolen the necklace because it possessed the ability to make him grow a second head.

“Have I said something wrong?”

Juno swallowed.

“The collector doesn’t have a twin brother.”

“Beg pardon?”

“The collector hired me to stake out the museum because he said he got a tip that someone would be trying to steal a necklace,” Juno explained, eyes still wide and voice going drier and drier by the second.

“Juno, you don’t think—”

Juno broke off to laugh in disbelief.

“I mean, that’s one way to do it.”

Nureyev raised an eyebrow.

“Do what?”

“He said he could let a big name thief fall into my hands, and if he helped me set the trap, he’d give me a cut of the bounty,” Juno continued. “That’s why he updated the security system a couple hours before the heist. My secretary saw you trip a couple things, and I’ll bet my life savings that was why you were running out of there.”

“Well, I suppose you’ve caught me fair and square, detective,” Nureyev chuckled.

“Yeah, whatever,” Juno sighed. “So, big name thief, huh?”

Nureyev’s face fell.

“No name at all, actually,” he returned slowly. “I pride myself on being untraceable. I have connections, of course, but they all have a different alias for me, if any at all. I was Alexander Noble for the collector, I believe. All the paperwork and IDs were brand new, so I don’t see how I could’ve possibly been traced—”

“Well, think about it, Ransom,” Juno began. “How much do you charge for a heist like that?”

“A significant amount.”

“Exactly,” Juno continued. “You’re a guy who knows what he’s worth. That also means whoever hires you gets some kind of idea of what you’re worth too. That’s usually a good thing, but this time, it explains why I couldn’t get the collector to tell me the first goddamn thing about this thief I was supposed to have heard about before.”

Nureyev didn’t reply, merely nodding along.

“Yeah, whatever, you get used to the whole detective thing after a while,” Juno snorted. “It’s not that impressive. It’s just my dayjob.”

“You wear it well, Juno,” Nureyev chuckled.

“Yeah, well I think you make a decent ‘insert thief here,’” Juno joked.

“As do you,” Nureyev returned. “Though, I must say, I personally wouldn’t have used my actual first name when attempting to abet the sale of stolen goods.”

“It was my first real heist, give me a break,” Juno huffed, elbow on the table and face falling into one hand.

“Or have mugged the president of Venus.”

“Shut up,” Juno grimaced. “Not all of us can be goddamn professionals. And I can’t even make fun of you, ‘cause you were set up for failure. You’re probably actually really good at stealing stuff.”

“Well, it seems I’ve robbed you of your dignity twice now,” Nureyev laughed in earnest. “So perhaps you’re not entirely incorrect.”

“Ransom,” Juno groaned, now into both of his hands.

“There, there, detective,” Nureyev chuckled, bringing up one still-gloved hand to rub a comforting circle into Juno’s back as he grumbled something incoherent into his palms. “Not all of us do so well on our first heists. There is certainly a learning curve, and frankly, for a lawman, I’m surprised it went half as well as it did.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Juno snorted as he raised his head.

“Me? My dear detective, I would never,” Nureyev returned, pretending to be utterly aghast at such an accusation.

“You’re making fun of me right now.”

“Semantics, dear,” Nureyev waved him off.

“You keep saying that,” Juno pointed out. “Dear and dearest and whatever.”

Nureyev’s hand recoiled from Juno’s shoulder, but Juno caught him by the wrist and put it right back. Peter felt himself let out a relieved breath when Juno smiled, an expression as soft as it was rendered lopsided by a scar across one of his lips. He had spent far too much time embarrassed by how much he wanted to kiss that scar, new since they first met, if not to soothe over the injury, to worship at a sign that Juno Steel was a living, breathing, fluid person, rather than a mere fantasy brought to life to torture him.

“Do you have any issue with it?”

Juno bit his lip thoughtfully, but from the tentative grin that replaced the gesture, Nureyev had a feeling he already knew the answer.

“I don’t,” he returned simply. “I just thought I’d warn you—I mean, we went on one date and I thought it went well, so if you ever wanted to go on another or something—I’m just not really a pet names guy. If you really want me to call you something sweet, I’ll work on it, but—”

“Peter Nureyev,” he cut Juno off, his stomach sinking so rapidly it might have burned a hole in the floor until Juno took the hand off his shoulder and squeezed it.

“Peter Nureyev,” Juno tried, and Nureyev nearly blinked with disbelief, for he had not heard the name said aloud in years. “I like it. Suits you better than President Laszlo.”

Nureyev’s high and reedy laugh eventually soothed into an amused one, helped along by the way Juno squeezed his hand in both of his own. It was strange to think he had spent so much of his time wondering about what would happen once he made it to Juno’s apartment, and not once considered laughing hysterically at a terrible hour of the morning while Juno Steel squeezed his hand. He also hadn’t considered the sensation of their interlocked fingers making his head spin almost as much as any one of their kisses.

When he eventually caught his breath enough to notice Juno was doing the same, he felt his smile fade a bit. If he were more awake, he would have cursed himself for laying himself bare in such a way. Perhaps he would have also done so if the object of his conversation was someone other than Juno Steel, for the detective had so artfully unraveled him in every sense of the word.

“Juno,” he began slowly.

“Nureyev,” Juno returned in the same manner, as if eager to feel the name in his mouth again.

“Are you going to arrest me?”

Juno raised an eyebrow.

“I mean—” he sighed, shaking his head. “Simple answer’s no, so I’ll start with that.”

“Thank God,” Nureyev breathed.

“The more complicated answer is that I kinda feel bad that you got snagged in a trap like this, not to mention the whole being a dick about it thing. If it’s any help, I’ll take the necklace back, give you a cut of what I’d usually take from the payout, and send you on your way,” Juno continued. “No harm no foul. You didn’t even break a window or anything.”

“Juno, I’d be absolutely delighted to walk away from this without issue, but I’m afraid I must interrogate you just a bit further,” Nureyev pressed.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you sound so dejected, dear?”

Juno swallowed.

“Well, it’s almost a decent ending, isn’t it?”

Nureyev raised an eyebrow and Juno went on.

“I mean, I’ll still probably get paid, you walk free, neither of us lose our job with Vicky for stepping on each other’s toes, that kind of thing. Except—”

“Except?”

“Except you said you’ve got a million aliases and you’re staying in a hotel room. You’re not gonna be on Mars forever. I don’t do long distance, and there’s no way in hell I’m leaving, not right now, at least,” Juno sighed. “I can’t do that to my secretary. And I mean, she could find work doing something else, but that doesn’t mean I feel okay with just giving up everything to chase you just because I—”

Juno broke off, shaking his head.

“Just because I really like having you around,” he admitted. “That’s why I was so gutted when I saw the thief was you, y’know? I knew there was something up with you, but I really didn’t wanna believe it was something I couldn’t forgive.”

Nureyev swallowed.

“Juno, I can’t prove my moral character by telling you of it now,” he began slowly. “Nor can I prove it to you by telling you what I regret. I also can’t make you leave with me.”

Juno nodded, letting out a breath that left his shoulders sagging, as if it had taken some great amount of force. 

“So this is it then, huh?”

“Juno, of course not,” Nureyev returned quickly. “As much as I do travel, Mars is a much larger planet than you would believe. I can do plenty of travelling work without moving too far. That’s not to say I’ll completely give up all interplanetary travel, if you sincerely want to pursue a relationship, I am willing to make my own series of compromises. Mind you, I don’t have to make all of them immediately, we still have time before I need to leave Mars again, and—”

Juno squeezed his hand, and even though the expression seemed to terrify him, smiled.

“Is that okay?” Nureyev added.

“Are you sure that’s okay with you?”

“Juno,” Nureyev began with a sigh. “I told you before that I try to make as few exceptions as possible in my life. I’ve already made many for you. How I feel about you—well, I suppose that’s just another exception I’m going to have to make. I can’t step around it, and I can’t merely make the sensation leave. I would if I could, believe me. You have made it quite difficult to focus on anything.”

“So is that a yes or a no?” Juno snorted.

“A yes, dearest.”

“Then that sounds alright to me,” Juno grinned, though not for long, for his lips found something far sweeter to occupy themselves with before Nureyev could reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fINALLY ugh i know this wasnt a slow burn but Come On sometimes a really meaningful kiss without the major buildup can Also Be Nice
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill eat your socks
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man oh man oh man this is so soft
> 
> Content warnings for blood (fake), implied vixen valley typical content

Juno had to say, the code pinned to his door with a knife and written in blood was one of the more interesting invitations he had received over the course of his life. Even if he was a little pissed at whoever had scared the living daylights out of the building owner, he had to give them points for style.

The mystery man Rita tracked on the security cameras seemed to have a flare for the dramatic, yet hardly any guts for it. A quick test identified the blood to be synthetic makeup, and not even the expensive kind, while the message didn’t seem to be anything more than a basic math problem. Thankfully for Juno, the man had picked a fairly dry week to leave Juno what was, by and large, probably a prank message.

If the code hadn’t borne a very specific and oddly familiar pattern, Juno would have thrown it out altogether.

“Rita!” He called from his office after staring at his computer screen for long enough to consider himself familiar with the topic. “Come take a look at this!”

Rita stuffed her nearly finished sweater under the table and paused her stream before jogging over to Juno’s office. When she arrived at his side, she stuffed her hands into her pocket and gave a look around, as if the ceiling had suddenly become far more interesting than whatever she had just finished doing, which, for the record, was certainly not knitting Juno a sweater for his birthday.

“What’s that stuff with the numbers, Mistah Steel?” She asked. 

“I think it’s this certain kind of code,” he started, squinting back at the screen as he tried to decipher the pronunciation of the name.

“Ooh, it’s that one with all the squares and stuff, right?”

“Yeah, I think,” Juno returned, glancing back between the sheet of paper and his computer screen once more. “Ransom was telling me about it on the phone the other day.”

“I thought Mistah Ransom was supposed to come back home yesterday,” Rita paused him, her eyebrows knit. “‘Cause you said you were gonna take a day or two off to spend some time with him, and I was gonna plan something, but then I checked the calendar and you didn’t take a day or two off and I was kinda confused, but—”

“Rita,” Juno broke her off, voice a little quieter than he wanted to admit. “His flight got delayed. There was a bad storm on Jupiter and they couldn’t take off. I made dinner and we had a nice call from his hotel room. It’s not—it’s not having him home, but it was good to hear his voice again.”

“I didn’t mean to bring it up, Mistah Steel,” Rita returned. “Why don’t you tell me some more about the code or something?”

Juno swallowed, then nodded.

“He said there was some sort of lock he had to crack the other day that used this stuff in coding and that I’d find the story kinda interesting or something,” Juno continued. “I don’t remember all the details, but I think you can encode words or numbers or whatever you want in it, so this isn’t just bullshit. This note probably actually means something.”

“Have you tried calling Mistah Ransom about it?”

“He sent a goodnight message a couple hours ago,” Juno sighed. “Ship time’s probably weird.”

“So what are you thinking about the code, boss?”

“I’m thinking that if it was encoded into a lock, that probably means it might actually have something to do with computer coding, and if you’re already familiar with it, you might be able to figure it out faster than I can,” Juno finished.

“Well, I would, but—”

Juno raised an eyebrow.

“But?”

“That’s the problem, Mistah Steel,” Rita sighed. “Look at the first line. Whaddya think it says?”

“Number number number square number,” Juno returned flatly.

“Very funny, Mistah Steel.”

“What does it actually say?”

“Dear Rita,” she began. “I know Mistah Steel—”

“Does it actually say Mistah—Mister Steel?”

“Nah, but I feel weird saying your name so I thought I’d have some fun with it,” Rita shrugged.

“How the hell can you read it that fast anyway?”

Rita ignored him.

“Dear Rita,” she started again. “I know Mistah Steel’s going to have you take a look at this before he does, and I’m trusting you not to crack this code for him. This is—”

Rita’s hand fell over her mouth before she could finish reading.

“What’s wrong?”

“Aww, Mistah Steel!” Rita cried, yanking him into a hug before he could finish protesting. “Mistah Steel, there’s a bit at the end of the first line that’s super complex code and you ain’t gotta worry about it, but it’s super sweet, and this ain’t actually a death threat or anything, it’s just something real nice and I think you oughta just leave it alone because it’ll ruin the surprise.”

Juno raised an eyebrow as Rita brought her head up from his chest for air.

“Surprise?”

“Yeah,” she sniffed, falling out of the hug. “Yeah, it’s real nice.”

With Juno’s interest solidly piqued, he got to work deciphering the code. He managed to complain enough to get a hint or two from Rita, though the majority of his morning was spent chugging down coffee and staring at the boxes as if they might burst into a musical number explaining themselves if he looked at them hard enough. Unfortunately, the boxes remained stubbornly silent, and he had to do most of his research himself.

Eventually, after three cups of coffee, a third of a notebook wasted on scrap paper, and nearly pacing a hole into the carpet while rubbing at his temples and muttering insults at whoever the hell invented a numerical system in base seven, something that almost looked like a message fell into place.

“Rita, can you check this for me?” He called.

“Uh-uh, the paper says I can’t give you any answers,” she returned.

Juno groaned.

“It’s one or two letters,” he added.

Rita paused for a silent moment of deliberation that lasted all of a second before she jogged back over to Juno’s desk to lean over his notebook and take a look.

“Almost,” she thought aloud. “You got an R instead of one of your Ls.”

“Yeah, I was wondering what ‘Carl into work’ meant,” Juno snorted. “How come both Ls don’t look the same?”

“Well, there’s a system for the regular Ls and there’s a system for the double Ls and both of ‘em are really similar to each other and also kinda similar to the R, but what I’m really trying to say is—”

“Call into work,” Juno mumbled under his breath. “Rita, we haven’t got any calls today, right?”

“Nope.”

“Work? Where the hell—” Juno broke off with a victorious beat. “Vicky. Rita, can you get me on a line with Valles Vicky real quick—not just the Vixen Valley, I mean the boss.”

“On it, Mistah Steel,” Rita returned, and from her hardly restrained grin, Juno was pretty sure he had guessed the message’s meaning exactly.

Vicky greeted him in a manner that Juno had learned to be her version of warm.

“Juno Steel, this had better be—”

“Relax, Vicky, I’m here to offer you a favor,” he cut her off.

“Good luck with that, Steel,” she scoffed. “Like hell I’m gonna be in debt to you.”

“Nothing that drastic. I know I’m off today, but a little birdie told me I should call into work. Anything I could do to help around the office? Maybe pick up the last pieces of my tab.”

“If it’s one time closer to when I have to stop seeing your ugly mug every weekend, I’ll bite,” Vicky huffed.

“You know you love me,” Juno snorted.

“Just ‘cause I accidentally made a headliner outta you doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Vicky snapped back. “Look, I don’t actually mind you calling so much. It looks like we got our schedules hacked a day or two ago, and we’re still trying to get a cast together for the evening. Half the Vixens took it as a long weekend for vacation, and we’re scraping together understudies.”

Juno groaned.

“You’re not gonna make me wear that stupid—”

“I ain’t gonna make you wear anything you don’t usually wear, Steel,” Vicky cut him off. “Someone booked a private room for a show with anybody available, and they’re paying a damn high price for it. You’ve just gotta do your usual schtick one last time, and then that’s the end of your tab.”

“Oh,” Juno returned, unsure of what else to say. “Thanks, Vicky.”

“Don’t you dare mention it,” Vicky snapped. “Look, it’s been a good run, Steel, but you need the time off. Just do your gig and I’ll send you a check for any extra you make. You take care.”

Vicky’s line beeped off before Juno could even reply.

It was strange to go about his pre-show rituals for the last time. The makeup was muscle memory and the dress had the same itchy, too-tight fit as usual, but for once, it felt less like a vice and more like an embrace. He had to admit, he was going to miss the place, even if it meant he had a hell of a lot more time for luxuries like sleep and dinner before midnight.

He hadn’t been able to get any more information on whoever had booked the room, though he didn’t doubt they were the same person who left him his little love letter on the door. He would also bet good money this stranger had hacked into the Vixen Valley’s schedules as well.

Between the curiosity buzzing in the back of his head and the pre-show excitement warming in his chest and face, Juno couldn’t make it to the guest’s room fast enough. He even did a jog past the room earlier in the evening just to check the name on it, but he couldn’t think of a Mister Noble he had ever met, even if the moniker sounded oddly familiar.

He wanted more than anything to poke his head past the curtains in a private room that was just as expensive as it looked, but he had heard the door open a few minutes prior, and he was fairly sure his curiosity wasn’t worth losing the pay that would end all his debts with a song or two. Despite the insistence of common sense, the unsolved mystery still flickered side by side with nerves in his chest, and when the great, wine red curtains drew apart, they couldn’t seem to spread fast enough.

Juno had expected the stranger to be bold enough to show his face after a move as ballsy as pinning a letter written in fake blood to Juno’s door with a knife. However, when the curtains drew aside and Juno fixed his work expression upon his face, the only person seated at the lone table in the room was hidden behind an impressively large bouquet of roses.

Juno took a breath and steeled himself. He wasn’t going to ruin a performance just because the audience was a little bit weirder than usual.

As the music lilted out behind him, he let the gentle swing of the bass guide his hips and the piano’s soft, eager yearning guide his hands up and around the stand of the fake microphone. He smiled at the man in the audience, though not for long, for the song requested ached with the kind of wanting that was as breathless as it was just a little sad. He let his lips worship at the microphone. He let his hands linger upon it as he began to trail down the stairs.

Juno couldn’t make out much more of the man up close, for he pulled the bouquet a little nearer to his face. He wasn’t entirely sure why someone so shy had booked a private room, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to go through his usual routine. Even without the man’s whole face revealed, his dark, sweet eyes hugged Juno’s every curve and watched as he trailed behind his chair. The stranger shivered when Juno breathed a sweet nothing into his ear on the way by, and if he hadn’t been sitting by the time Juno took a seat on the table in front of him, he was fairly sure the man’s knees would have given out.

He let his gloved fingers wander up the plastic of the bouquet as the last few notes ached their way past his lips. His hand walked forward inch by inch until he reached the top of the bouquet and tugged down with a cheeky grin, just to reveal the gentleman who had been kind enough to be his benefactor.

Juno felt his jaw drop.

“Nureyev,” he breathed, glad that Vicky had provided him a track to sing to, rather than the full band she preferred, leaving the room empty but for the two of them. “Oh my God—”

Nureyev set the bouquet aside just in time for Juno to launch into his arms for a hug.

“I missed you too, dear,” he chuckled, though the sound was broken off into a sweet hum when Juno pressed their lips together, uncaring that his show lipstick would absolutely smear. Nureyev didn’t seem to care either, for he merely pulled Juno close by the small of his back and worshipped his thumb along Juno’s cheek with the other hand. “God, Juno, I’ve thought of doing this every single day since I left.”

“Why don’t you kiss me again? Maybe that’ll make it a little better or something,” Juno snorted.

Nureyev gladly took him up on the offer, holding Juno close as he brought their lips together again, soft and sweet and just a little desperate. Juno could have died in that position, but Nureyev eventually trailed away to press a kiss to his cheek, and Juno knew for a fact it was his own lipstick that had palpably stained back onto his face. 

“Nureyev,” Juno breathed. “I can’t believe you did all this for me. This couldn’t have been cheap.”

“I made more than I was expecting on my last sale,” Nureyev shrugged. “I also thought I might as well do something nice for you to surprise you with the good news.”

Juno raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I’ve found a benefactor who’s looking for a certain thief to go after a series of paintings she wants to procure,” Nureyev began, his fox’s grin getting wider and wider as he spoke. “One Valles Vicky.”

Juno felt his jaw drop.

“So you’re—”

“Coming home, dear,” Nureyev smiled. “And staying home, for I assume these heists will take quite some while. Of course, I’ll need to leave occasionally, but perhaps I might take you with me. We could treat it as a vacation. God knows you deserve one, my love.”

“God, I love you,” Juno sighed.

He had almost leaned in to kiss Nureyev again when the music for the next song started, leaving him frozen with his lips ajar, just a few inches from Peter’s.

“Do you need to sing?” Nureyev asked.

“I dunno, Nureyev,” Juno snorted. “It’s your show. Do you want me to do another song or not?”

Nureyev hummed thoughtfully.

“It’s your final show, my love,” he finally smiled. “And I have always wanted to see you perform.”

“You’re so corny,” Juno snorted, though he trailed back up to the stage anyway.

“I love you too, dear,” Nureyev laughed from the audience, giving him a friendly wave once he returned back to the microphone.

“Enough to shut up and let me sing?”

“Of course,” Nureyev chuckled. “Don’t stop me from taking your encore, my love.”

Juno took a deep breath to begin again, though he had to say, Nureyev’s lovestruck grin was making it awfully difficult to focus on anything. For the time being, however, he forced the notes out and smiled, thoughts torn somewhere between Peter’s cherry-stained lips and the extra long trumpet solo coming up in just a few more measures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AW MAN!!!!! i love them
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and ill give each one of my dogs a little smooch on the head for every comment this gets
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!

**Author's Note:**

> zoo wee mama
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill mug you and by that i mean steal your mugs
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


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